What are we to say of making Penelope, whose room looked out upon the cloister, sleep soundly all through the killing of the suitors? What of her remarks to Euryclea when she has been waked? What, again, of her interview with Ulysses, and the dance which Ulysses presently advises? what, indeed, of the whole Book? Surely it is all perfectly right as coining from some such person as the one portrayed in my frontispiece, but who can conceive the kind of man or matron who could write it? The same applies to Book xxiv. What man or middle-aged woman could have written the ineffably lovely scene between Ulysses and Laertes in the garden? or have made Ulysses eat along with Dolius, whose son and daughter he had killed on the preceding day? A man would have been certain to make Ulysses tell Dolius that he was very sorry, but there had been nothing for it but to hang his daughter and to cut his son's nose and ears off, draw out his vitals, and then cut off his hands and feet. Probably, however, he would have kept Dolius and his sons out of the Book altogether.
When Ulysses and Penelope are in bed (xxiii. 300-343) and are telling their stories to one another, Penelope tells hers first. I believe a male writer would have made Ulysses' story come first and Penelope's second.
[1] See Chapter X.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THAT ITHACA AND SCHERIA ARE BOTH OF THEM DRAWN FROM TRAPANI AND ITS IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD.